BENJI Marshall thanked the defence forces ahead of Anzac Day, praised Wests Tigers’ defence … and then went on the attack.
“This is probably not a good time, but who cares?” he said after a 33-14 win over Canberra at Leichhardt Oval.
“The inconsistency of the refs is annoying me at the moment. Some of the calls were just, like….
“It’s hard to understand. Even Api’s (Koroisau) case with the sin bin, I don’t know what he’s supposed to do in that situation.”
Wests Tigers hooker Koroisau was placed on report twice and faces an anxious wait for NRL charges to be handed down. Canberra scored both their tries when he was in the sin bin for a hip drop.
Marshall continued: “He’s making a covering tackle from behind, of course he’s going to land on his legs.
“There’s heaps of things that didn’t go our way but I just think the fans deserve some consistency around interpretations of the rules.
“They’re not getting it.”
He’s already been charged three times for dangerous contact this year.
“I don’t think it was intentional,” Marshall argued. “He did his 10 minutes. Surely that’s enough.”
On the second half lifting tackle which also resulted in the no.9 being reported, Marshall said: “If it was up to me, I probably would have challenged that.
“I didn’t think it was that bad.”
A highlight was Samuela Fainu’s pass around the back of the defence, with Adam Doueihi having to reach behind to take the miracle pass and score in the 45th minute.
Wests Tigers scored 23 points to nil in the second half.
“They can book their end-of-season holidays a lot earlier if we don’t start fixing our errors,” said Canberra coach Ricky Stuart.
“I’m soft with them, I said ‘I know individuals don’t go out to make errors’. Bullshit. Fix it.”
Marshall commented: “Defence and the Wests Tigers probably haven’t been synonymous in the past.
“But we made an effort in the pre-season to make sure that it was this year.”
Tiger Jahream Bula suffered a recurrence of a shoulder injury.
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WESTS TIGERS 33 (Doueihi 2 Lauliili 2 May Hunt tries Doueihi 4 goals field goal) beat CANBERRA 14 (Timoko Weekes tries Sanders 3 goals) at Leichhardt Oval. Crowd: 17,153
Teams:
WESTS TIGERS: Jahream Bula; Sunia Turuva, Taylan May, Starford To’a, Luke Lauliili; Jahrome Luai (c), Adam Doueihi; Terrell May, Api Koroisau, Fonua Pole, Samuela Fainu, Kai Pearce-Paul, Alex Twal. Res: Jack Madden, Sione Fainu, Royce Hunt, Alex Seyfarth, Patrick Herbert, Tristan Hope.
CANBERRA: Keao Weekes; Sebastian Kris, Matthew Timoko, Savelio Savale, Jed Stuart; Ethan Strange, Ethan Sanders; Joe Tapine (c), Tom Starling, Morgan Smithies, Zac Hosking, Noah Martin, Corey Horsburgh. Res: Ata Mariota, Jayden Brailey, Daine Laurie, Joe Roddy, Chevy Stuart, Owen Pattie.
Referee: Ashley Klein.
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